Thursday, July 30, 2009

With time and mandatory work productivity constraints threatening to interrupt my waxing nostalgic on all things Great American Bash tomorrow, I thought it prudent to properly conclude this year's tribute to summertime during the height of Jim Crockett Promotions with a special Thursday late afternoon posting spotlighting the humiliation of Ric Flair during the latter part of the 1987 Great American Bash tour, culminating in his losing of the NWA World Heavyweight Title to Ron Garvin that September.

Flair spent the weeks leading up to the '87 Bash distracted by and infatuated with Jimmy Garvin's valet/wife Precious. Flair went so far as to purchase Precious an expensive mink coat (as opposed to one he culled from a rack of slightly burned garments at the Charlotte area Goodwill). To the surprise of no one, Jimmy Garvin did not take kindly to this gesture in particular, let alone Flair's increasingly raunchy verbal advances on his lady. Hence, a match was signed for the Great American Bash card in Greensboro between the two. Steel cage. No disqualification. If Flair loses, the title goes buh-bye. But if Garvin loses, Flair gets a hot date with Precious likely culminating with a ride on Space Mountain *wink, wink; nudge, nudge*.

Flair was able to retain his title at the Greensboro Bash and earned his date. However, instead of Precious showing up to Flair's suite at the Ramada Renaissance, unbeknownst to Flair at the time due to some particularly romantic mood lighting, brother Ron Garvin walked in to the hotel room dressed in drag and proceeded to knock out the champ with the ol' hands of stone.

Flair, embarrassed and irate, went out for revenge, going so far as to interfere in Garvin's matches. Hence, the clip above, while taped a week or so after the conclusion of the '87 tour, is the nonetheless illustrative of the degradation Flair would suffer during much of the Summer of 1987 at the hands of Garvin. We start off with The Garvin Brothers challenging Jim Cornette's Midnight Express for the US Tag Titles on NWA Pro Wrestling (after the introductory remarks by David Crockett and Tony Schiovane, the latter of which is sporting a miserable attempt at Magnum T.A.'s trademark robust schlong cut). We end up with Flair and Garvin brawling in the ring, Garvin rolling up the champ and exposing Naitch's ghostly white buttcheeks to the rubes in the crowd, and perplexingly picking up the fall on a guy who wasn't even entered into the match.

This officially concludes Arabian Facebuster's Random Great American Bash clip July. Until next year's five part expose on Jimmy Valiant laying motionless on the canvas, covered in his own blood and the sweat of Paul Jones' Army members Shaska Whatley and Teijo Khan...

Monday, July 27, 2009

For quite some time now, I've been planning to honor The Four Horsemen circa 1986-1988 (not the later day versions that featured such stains as Sid Vicious, Paul Roma, Jeff Jarrett, and Steve "Mongo" McMichael whose perplexing and often expedient inclusion ultimately tarnished the luster and legacy of the group) for (a) delivering both in the ring and on the stick; (b) being among the first "cool heels" where you'd feel compelled to cheer the bad guys and root against the good guys; and (c) their ruthless and violent gang style beatdowns of seemingly all of babyfaces and jobbers that had a cup of coffee with Jim Crockett Promotions during this period.

The clip I was hoping to embedded in order to illustrate these contentions, point 3 in particular, was footage from a Clash of the Champions in June, 1988 where Flair, Blanchard, Double A, JJ Dillon, and newly turned heel and anointed Horsemen Barry Windham put the boots to Lex Luger in a sadistic arena parking lot attack just moments after "The Total Package" disembarked from his Lincoln Continental limousine, causing severe lacerations to the TP's horse face and leaving footprints all over his fucking white tuxedo! After inflicting this carnage, the Horsemen dumped Luger's body into the trunk of the very limo he arrived in. Now that's how you do irony.

Simply put, for me, this is among the top three satisfying and gratifying rasslin' moments of all time.

Unfortunately, this viral video is no longer available. After much futile scouring, I have come to the conclusion that the Poindexters at World Wrestling Entertainment forced Youtube to put a cease and desist on the original clip poster's account as he/she had run afoul of WWE copyright and thus Youtube's terms of use agreement.

Rest assured, if this now infamous clip ever resurfaces on the interwebs, Arabian Facebuster will bring it to you. In the interim, allow me to draw your attention to the mauling of unheralded, underrated, and under appreciated plucky mid-card babyface Brad Armstrong by the original collective. There is so much goodness crammed into two and one half minutes here (the last minute is a slow motion replay of the attack as the NWA Pro Wrestling credits roll) -- Flair's canary yellow Member's Only jacket, Tully Blanchard's watermelon colored dress pants, of course Arn's gourdbuster on the folding chair, and as was the style of the time, a delayed rescue and heel scattering by a contingent (specifically, Barry Windham, Ron Garvin, and The Rock &/or Roll Express) from the babyfacelocker room.

It's too bad that Lex Luger wasn't on the receiving end of this mugging too.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Random Great American Bash clip Friday keeps on keeping on! This week we flash ahead to the 1987 Great American Bash tour, which featured: (1) The inception of the War Games match (two rings surrounded and covered by a cyclone fence) as The Four Horsemen battled Dusty, Nikita, and the Road Warriors; (2) The Rock and Roll Express defending their World Tag Titles against Jim Cornette's Midnight Express; (3) Ric Flair once again taking on any and all challengers for his World Title, most notably Jimmy Garvin; (4) Lex Luger chasing and eventually capturing the US Title from Nikita Koloff; and (5) the stars of the Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) on tour with the stars with the National Wrestling Alliance.

You may recall that in the Spring of 1987, Bill Watts sold his UWF promotion over to Jim Crockett. Instead of immediately morphing or dissolving the UWF into the NWA (that would occur at Starrcade that November), Crockett retained the UWF brand name and syndicated programming while keeping much of its talent pool in tact...the most notable immediate defections being Ted DiBiase and The One Man Gang who showed up in the WWF later that summer, along with Hacksaw Jim Duggan, who I believe left right before the acquisition took place.

In addition, Crockett started infusing many of his NWA guys into the UWF. For example, Barry Windham came in and won the unprestigious and randomly created UWF Western States Heritage Title while Jim Cornette's bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers showed up seemingly out of nowhere to take the UWF Heavyweight Title from the One Man Gang then promptly turn heel and joined up with Skandor Akbar's anti-honky talkin' army otherwise known as Devastation Incorporated. Also around this time, Magnum T.A. and his glistening schlong cut and exquisite rug of chest hair became the color commentator on one of the UWF broadcasts. Hell, even Dusty Rhodes came in every now and again to suckle at the sweet teet -- or more accurately in the Dream's case, feast upon the all you can eat buffet-- of the area's top babyfacehoss and contender for Big Bubba'sUWF Title, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams.

In turn, UWF guys like The Fabulous Freebirds, Sting, and Rick Steiner were gradually featured on NWA TV and incorporated into NWA angles and storylines.

The apex of this NWA-UWF arrangement was having both "companies" (again, it was in actuality one company but presented as and understood by 11 year old mark lil' Malibu Sands to be two distinct federations) join forces for an expanded Great American Bash tour.

Another NWA jumper over to the UWF during the spring of '87 was the Tulsa Welding School's most venerated and articulate graduate," Dick Murdoch. The recently heel turned and grizzled veteran promptly joined forces with the embodiment of chicken shit heeldom "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert to run roughshod over Gilbert's arch nemesis, Dr. Death.

While the clip above does not take place during the Great American Bash per se, it very much set the stage for the series of Murdoch-Williams and Murdoch/Gilbert-Williams/"Freebird" Terry Gordy (the first time the eventually to be christened Miracle Violence Connection joined forces) confrontations during the '87 tour.

Go ahead and click play now, you'll get vintage flair for the dramatic Mid South/UWF era Jim Ross play-by-play, one of the vilest two-on-one beatdowns you'll ever witness, and a SICK chair shot on a hapless pasty/mulleted garden variety 80s jobber at the 1 minute 57 second mark.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

To my left, the official "Chris Jericho Cell Phone Sock", available for a paltry $8.95 at th' WWE shop zone.

Folks, I need me this cell phone sock.

I need this cell phone sock because I am a cell-phone havin' fool, and the display of my Pantech sliding-keyboard Text-a-Tron 950 is getting all scratched up from the constant friction caused by sliding in and out of the ass pocket of my incredibly tight black hipster jeans. Swear to god, I haul that baby out fifty, sixty times a day, with nary a cell phone sock for protection. I'm checking hockey scores (well, not in the middle of summer), I'm trip planning with Trimet, I'm google-ing restaurants...

I'm... twittering.

That's right, fans, try to control yr excitement. Th' thrilling worldview of Arabian Facebuster has taken yet another bold step into the forefront of th' digital age! Swing by twitter.com/apollospas, and you too can receive profanity-laden text messages whenever I'm watching wrestling! Too sweet! Wanna hear about how Mickie James looks like an Oompa-Loompa? Sign up! Wondering if TNA is still gross and boring? Sign up! Want public-health warnings whenever Tommy Dreamer takes his shirt off? Well, then you should probably follow Chris Jericho's feed, not mine, but sign up with me anyway! It's twitterific!

Thank you for yr time, and I'm not kidding about wanting that cell phone sock.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Facebuster Nation, it was with great trepidation that we initially considered the much-vaunted "Celebrity Booking" angle on Monday Night RAW. Coming, as it did, from the mouth of the ever-dreadful Donald Trump, we reasonably assumed the worst. Clearly, this was another half-baked scheme from the back of th' McMahon Scheme Vaults to further dilute, bowdlerize, and otherwise cheapen the (dubious) purity of our beloved wrassle-wrassle. When Trump was (anticlimactically) fired at the end of the two-hour KFC commercial that was his tenure as RAW Owner, we were sure that saner heads had prevailed and the Celebrity Booker would be rightfully consigned to that "Dustbin of History" we've all heard so much about.

Well, we were wrong, and we were wrong.

Now, I won't make any claims as to the quality of recent guest hopes (Dibiase kind of stank the joint up, and I missed the Seth Greene thing entirely), but this week... oh, man. ZZ FUCKING TOP?!?!?!?!

This should be one of the finest rock/wrestling crossovers since th' Three 6 Mafia handled announcing duties for Wrestling Society X.

For the doubters among you who are perhaps wondering why someone with my admittedly impeccable indie/punk credentials is getting all giddy over the bearded grandpas who wrote "Burger Man", please refer to the clip above: "Letter To ZZ Top" performed by the incomparable US Maple. Please note the lineage: ZZ Top plus Freddie Blassie plus Beefheart begets US Maple. ZZ Top plus Lester Bangs begets the entire city of Austin. And ZZ Top Plus RAW equals me getting wrecked on cheap lager and blasting "Tres Hombres" while watching RAW with the sound off.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Submitted for yr consideration in this week's installment of Random Great American Bash clip Friday, the origins of Magnum T.A.'s feud and best of seven series for the NWA U.S. Title against "The Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff during the 1986, 14 city installment of the Bash.

A few observations and opinions from the proverbial bloody pulpit:

:10 -- Don't let David Crockett and Tony's Schiavone's matching cream blazers distract you, for David is explaining the incident that led up to the face to face meeting between soon to be stripped US Heavyweight Champion Magnum TA and NWA President Bob Giegel (think Jack Tunney but with 50% more competence and the ability to be filmed in a non-seated manner during his proclamation making, decree ordering, and reprimand issuing segments), namely an altercation at a contract signing between TA and Koloff that ended up with Magnum attacking and eventually getting his ass kicked by Nikita and uncle Ivan after they insulted Magnum's sweet ol' mother.

:40 -- Who is that dweeb in the tuxedo? And is it just me, or is that a really teeny bow tie? Or an impressively strapping cumberbund?

1:00 -- Giegel demonstrates the poise, decisiveness, and gravitas required of the NWA's highest officeholder by reading briskly through a prepared statement.

Facebuster nation, in deference to our country's current economic malaise that -- depending upon the economic indicators and/or the political persuasion/economic orientation of the pundits given credence -- we are either starting to turn the corner on or has no foreseeable end in sight, Arabian Facebuster has decided to dramatically scale back this year's 3rd Annual Staff Conference and Fan Conclave, August 13-15 in vivacious Portland, OR.

That means no guaranteed block of rooms at the Shilo Inn, Portland Airport. No splurging for Macanudo's or non mass produced, non specially lined canned beers. No choice of a complimentary koozie, gunny sack, or jizz rag for those early registrants. No keynote address by George "The Animal" Steele. No evening entertainment from the likes of Kamala, Glenn Goza, or Buck "Rock & Roll" Zumhofe and the bluesy riffage of his band The Buck "Rock & Roll" Zumhofe Experience. No cameo appearance by or even rebuffing phone call from The Undertaker. And most certainly no round the clock intravenous booze drip for Larry Nelson.

So what do we have? Camaraderie. The 1986 Great American Bash featuring an insomnia curing hair vs. hair match between Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie Man" Valiant and Shaska Whatley on video cassette. The hazy memories from staff conferences and fan conclaves past to reminisce over hazily. Closely related, a couple of half-racks of Inversion IPA procured from the Rite Aid just off Lombard St. Oh, and a Hogan Family Death Pool.

You heard me, a Hogan Family Death Pool.

Much like other non-rasslin' related celebrity death pools that our staff participates in with reckless abandon and unbridled enthusiasm, we will draw a name out a Hogan family member out a hat, specifically, my blue mesh Schmidt's Beer hat which Rev. Von. Fury so graciously purchased for me during the 2 and 1/2 Annual AFSC&FC. The name you draw is your death pool entrant. There are four of us and four of them, so the math works out splendidly.

We are also awarding honorary Hogan Family Death Pool participatory status to Bunny Bissoux. She will be assigned Linda Hogan's boy toy Charlie Hill (for the sake of parity at the outset of this endeavor, I sure hope that isn't tetraethyl pyrophosphate in lil' Charlie's glass).

The winner is the Facebuster editor whose designated Hogan family member croaks first. Along with the sense of accomplishment and delight that comes with a death pool victory, he/she will also be required to compose a brief obituary and/or eulogy.

This is going to be fun!!!

Update: We're the #1 Google result for the query "Hogan Family Death Pool."

Friday, July 10, 2009

Here at Arabian Facebuster, we've done our darnedest to chronicle the various dastardly exploits of the contingent of Soviet grapplers that seemingly came in droves to this country's polluted and eroded shores in the mid-1980s. From Soldat Ustinov's Pearl Harbor job on Baron Von Raschke'sreflective noggin and enviousness of the Baron's army surplus store (or alternatively, northwoods country motif) chic blazer, to Korchenko's minty minty grievances with the concept of televised professionalrasslin' and in turn the obligations required of him, to Ivan Koloff's penchant for bashing his cranium into a bloody pulp via his own Russian chain.

It's time to add the Ric Flair-Nikita Koloff enmity from the Summer of 1985 -- which featured an epic confrontation for the NWA World Title at the inaugural Great American Bash in Flair's hometown of Charlotte, NC -- to the list. While the embedded video does a sufficient job explaining the back story of this feud, permit me to yammer on for a bit. Flair was a bit of tweener in 1985 (I'm not sure if that's because he being challenged and attacked by a Soviet heel or because of reasons/circumstances prior to this feud) while Koloff was a powerful, athletically gifted, volatile, ruthless, ambitious, seemingly unstoppable rookie monster under the tutelage of his uncle Ivan Koloff.

Highlights of this segment, which I believe was culled from Pro Wrestling Illustrated's (PWI) heavily clipped "Ringmasters: Great American Bash" video tape (made available for both VHS and BETA systems) include:(1) Nikita gearing up for his match by practicing his Russian Sickle on an 8'X10' glossy of Ric Flair in a dapper three piece suit!;(2) David Crockett taking a particularly viscous looking Sickle;(3) Flair street fighting Nikita in a pair of Dockers;(4) Bill Apter's ignorance in equating the concept of diplomacy with two guys climbing into a rasslin' ring to beat the holy hell out of each other;(5) Playing a Steve Albini produced/recorded demo of Fugazi's "Cassavetes" at exactly the 2 minute mark of this clip to accompany the match montage instead of the preselected/default soundtrack.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

In a similar vein as "Nature Boy" Ric Flair's chance encounter with the penguin attired cabin fatty Casanova Larry Nelson and his bloated liver, Arabian Facebuster is proud to present Hunter Hearst Helmsley's 1995 World Wrestling Federation debut. Allow me to state the (painfully) obvious: the eventually to be rebranded The Game's physique back then was more akin to Shawn Michaels' or Randy Orton's than his current Ole Anderson juiced to gills look/Lex Luger with 33% more rasslin' talent, 65% better conditioned follicles, and 18% more motivation shtick.

And who prey tell is that pale skinned, clumsily postured, pedophile 'stached opponent full of spunk, fortitude, about 15 or so Perocets, and proud owner of a 1984 Ford Econoline conversion/rape van with a glove box replete with spermicidal lube and angel dust?

News flash: Not unlike Rocky Mountain Thunder and anyone that dared try and impede this shoeless wunderkind's meteoric rise to the pinnacle of the venerated American Wrestling Association, these two didn't exactly mesh well together in the ring.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

TMZ reports that "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was arrested in Hollywood early this morning for DUI...or was it DWI? In either case, Hot Rod was taken into custody, booked, and presumably has already posted bail and is back out on the streets, getting ready to go on the bender of a lifetime as a way of putting this huge personal failure and harassment behind him.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Random Great American Bash clip Friday continues, Facebuster nation (alright, Wednesday, but I'm going to be on vacation over the next few days, intensively practicing my uniting towel waving in order to build up the necessary right wrist and forearm endurance to participate this year's rendition of synchronized pointlessness and wanted to throw something up Bash related for yr consideration)!!! As members of the Facebuster Sexy Action News Team witnessed firsthand (on tape) thanks to the video cassette recorder troubleshooting prowess of one Rev. Von. Fury and through the Macanudo filled haze of the Shilo Inn-Portland Airport cigar lounge at last year's Staff Conference and Fan Conclave, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes captured his third NWA World Heavyweight Title by defeating "Nature Boy" Ric Flair at the 1986 Great American Bash card in Greensboro, NC.

This was the payoff to Dusty's nearly three year quest to take the gold off of Flair's waste that, up until that fateful July Saturday night, had come up short each time, thwarted largely due to outside interference from the Horsemen and/or Dusty's questionable decision to book screw job, ref bump heavy "Dusty finishes" in his own title matchups.

Instead of putting up a segment from that overrated contest for you to snooze through, I thought it better to skip ahead a few weeks to August, 1986. My friends, there was no post-Bash hangover to speak of for the National Wrestling Alliance; just more hot rasslin' action, molten crowds, and compelling storylines. In fact, as you are about to see, the Flair/Horsemen-Rhodes rivalry continued to escalate. Flair had a regained the title in St. Louis a few weeks before and was about to take ownership to another of Dusty's prized possessions in Charlotte...the orifices of the tuxedo clad blond bombshell Baby Doll (I betcha' thought I was going to say Dusty's Old Country Buffet frequent grazer card. Sorry to disappoint you all, but here at Arabian Facebuster we don't take cheap shots on people for their corpulence, or for that matter their baldness, incompetence, failed business ventures, addictions to drugs or alcohol, insanity, senility, loss of bowel control, or complete lack of rasslin' competence).

Joined in progress, this was originally broadcast on the NWA's syndicated Pro Wrestling program, as evident by the yellow ring apron and the broadcast tandem of Bob Caudle-Johnny Weaver.

Enjoy.

Oh, and for those inclined to sit through about two minutes of ring introductions and another sixty seconds of watching Flair bump all over the ring to put over Dusty's decidedly non-slender offensive outburst to get to the initial Baby Doll provocation, go here.